Learning Journals

What is a reflective journal?

A reflective journal - often called a learning journal - is a steadily
growing document that you (the learner) write, to record the progress of your
learning. You can keep a learning journal for any course that you undertake, or
even for your daily work.

This page is mainly about reflective or learning journals for online
courses, such as those run by Audience Dialogue. Students from other
institutions (including the Open University) are also welcome to use these
ideas, though the conditions for marking and submission may be different.

A reflective journal is not...

simply a summary of the course material. Focus more on your reactions
to what you've read, and what you've been reading.

a learning log. On a learning log you might write down the times and
days when you read something. A log is a record of events, but a journal is
a record of your reflections and thoughts.

Who benefits from a reflective journal?

You, the learner. The fact that you are keeping a record of what you learn
is an incentive to keep pushing ahead.

There's an old saying "you don't know what you know till you've written it
down" - and several research studies have found this to be true. By telling
yourself what you've learned, you can track the progress you've made. You also
begin to notice the gaps in your knowledge and skills.

How to write a reflective journal

A hundred years ago, distance education didn't exist, and textbooks were
very expensive to buy. Therefore, students had to attend lectures and write
notes while they listened. Most of those notes simply recorded the contents of
the lecture. The act of writing the notes, and deciding what to write, was a
major factor in students' learning.

These days, you don't need lecture notes for online courses, because (a)
there are no lectures, (b) the notes are already on the web site, (c) books are
relatively cheap, and (d) because you are doing an online course, you must also
have access to the entire Web. So instead of lecture notes, we use reflective
journals. The emphasis is different, but the purpose is similar: to help you
make sense of what you've been learning.

Entries in a reflective journal can include:

Points that you found specially interesting in your reading, and would
like to follow up in more detail.

Questions that came up in your mind, because of points made in material
you read on this topic.

After an online class (immediately after it, if possible) it's a good
idea to reinforce your learning by trying to remember the main things you
learned. Think "What were the three main points that were new to me, in the
material I read today?" Write them down without looking at the course notes
- then compare them with those notes, to make sure you remembered the
points accurately.

Notes from other material you read as a result of the course - whether
this was publications cited, or relevant material that you happened to read
(such as newspaper articles).

A record of everything you read in this subject area, while you're
doing the course, with a sentence or two on the main points an article was
making and how useful you found it.

Your reflections on this course, and how well it is meeting your
needs.

How your learning in this course is related to what you're learning in
other ways.

Thoughts that aren't yet fully formed, but that you want to refine
later. This could include your feelings about the course and your progress
in it, and theories that are developing in your mind.

Each time you submit your reflective journal, think back over everything
you've done since the last time. Which sources did you learn most from? Which
did you learn least from, and why was that? (Did you know the material
already?) Write a paragraph or two about the sources of your new learning.

What form should it take?

Some people prefer to write at a computer keyboard, while others prefer to
write by hand. Depending on your preference, a reflective journal could take
any of these forms:

A pad with very small pages - about the size of a shirt pocket or
mobile phone. Every time you have a thought about the course, write it on a
separate sheet of paper. Later, you can tear the pages out of the pad and
sort them so that similar notes go together - e.g. the main points you
learned, what you need to learn more about, references that you need to
read, questions to ask the instructor, and so on.

Later, you can transcribe the relevant notes in to a hard-bound
notebook, in which you write clearly by hand. This will last for years, and
will be a reference book for you, long after you finish the course.

If you find it easier to write directly at a keyboard, print out each
page of the journal as you finish it. You can store the pages in a
loose-leaf binder, as a permanent record of your learning progress.

Even if you prefer to read from a computer screen, we suggest that you
keep a printed copy as well. If you need to refer to your journal in a few
years' time, the chances are that the computer file will no longer be
readable - perhaps because the software is superseded, or the disk crashes,
or the many other problems that occur with computer files over time.

Private thoughts

You may also want to include private thoughts in your journal - something
that you don't want the instructor to see, but might be useful for you later.
That's fine - just keep your private thoughts on a second file, which you don't
send in with the main journal.

How much time should I spend on this? How much should I write?

If you make notes whenever you think of something, the only extra time it
will take for the journal is to type it out - maybe an hour a week. As a rough
guide,we expect a learning journal to have about 2 pages for each weekly
module, and about the same for your summary at the end of the course. At the
end of a 10-week course, you'll have written about 20 pages.

Marking

Because learning is such an individual thing, the marks for the learning
journal will not vary much: mostly between 6 and 8 out of 10. You won't lose
marks for poor spelling, or mentioning problems, or asking what might seem
silly questions. You will get good marks by showing that you've been
reading widely, and raising issues that flow from that reading, and making it
clear that you have been thinking a lot about these issues.

How to use a reflective journal

The purpose of a reflective journal is that you should be the main one to
benefit from it. Writing down your thoughts helps to clarify them in your own
mind. So why are you given a mark for it? Two reasons: (a) to encourage you to
get around to writing it, and (b) so the instructor can see any problems you're
having, and help solve them.

It doesn't have to be all plain, linear text. Feel free to use varied forms
of writing: quotations, tables, diagrams, and pictures (either sketched by you,
or found elsewhere).

After you finish the course, you'll probably forget most of the details, but
you may need to use that knowledge again, perhaps years afterwards. If you keep
the finished journal, you can read through it later, to remind you of what you
learned in the course. The more clearly and vividly you write it, the better
you'll remember it.

You can keep a learning journal for any course that you undertake, or even
for your daily work.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in web hosting say for a learning project
(even an online journal) then I suggest you visit this link to check
options.

Suggested format for a reflective journal

This is one of many possibilities, but it will give you some idea of the
types of question that you can usefully ask yourself. Feel free to modify this
two-part format to suit your needs.

Part 1
A page (or two) for each session, completed by you in order of the
sessions.

Complete this information after each time you do some work on the course.
This includes the formal sessions, the related reading and any other
preparation, such as work in groups. Answer only the questions that apply - but
think carefully about whether each question applies or not.

Your name

Session date

Session number

Session topic

What did I read for this session (apart from the notes)?

What was the most interesting thing I read for this session
(mark it above with an asterisk) - why was that?

What were three main things I learned from this session?

What did I previously think was true, but now know to be
wrong?

What did we not cover that I expected we should?

What was new or surprising to me?

What have I changed my mind about, as a result of this
session?

One thing I learned in this session that I may be able to use
in future is...

I am still unsure about...

Issues that interested me a lot, and that I would like to study
in more detail

Ideas for action, based on this session...

What I most liked about this session was...

What I most disliked about this session was...

Miscellaneous interesting facts I learned in this
session...

Part 2
This part will be more useful after you've finished the course. It's a mixture
of all sorts of thoughts you have about the course that don't fit into any
specific session. These items can include:

Special terms used in this subject (build yourself a glossary).

The main books and other writings on this subject, for possible later
reference.

Names and contact details of other students, and their special
interests.

This Part 2 stuff can be messy, because there's no fixed order to it. Four
ways to reduce the messiness are:

Use a pad with very small pages, and write each note on a separate
page. At the end of the course, remove all the pages, sort them into some
logical sequence, then copy them into a permanent notebook. All that
copying isn't a waste of time: it will help you recall the course
material.

Use a notebook, starting every new topic on a new page. Number the
pages (if they're not already numbered), and at the start the notebook
create a contents page as you go. At the end of the course (when you're not
going to start any new pages), copy each page heading from the contents
page onto a little scrap of paper, and sort the scraps into alphabetical
order. Then you can create an index, and put it on the last page of the
notebook.

One big computer file, normally created with a word processing program
such as MS Word, and lots of subheadings. If you use outlining,
hyperlinking, highlighting new topics in different colours, and/or sorting
paragraphs into alphabetical order, it's easier to find an entry
later.

All of these can be used to organize lots of little notes. Another
alternative is to write each note as an email, and send it to yourself.
More ideas can be found in our page on software for qualitative research.

One suggestion: if you decide to keep your reflective journal on a computer,
try out the software first on a small scale. If you don't feel confident using
it, or find it too restrictive, it's best to write your journal by hand. After
all, you're meant to be learning about the subject you're studying, not how to
overcome software problems.